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Much as we love a spinach salad, we firmly believe that the best vehicle for spinach is pasta. The green leaves wilt down and heat up in mere minutes, providing bright color, a smooth texture, and an abundance of nutrients that will truly level up your pasta game.
How does spinach improve your dish's nutritional value? It's an extremely nutrient-dense ingredient, meaning it's low in calories but high in beneficial nutrients, including iron, calcium, zinc, and vitamins A, C, K, and B9 (otherwise known as folate). And if all that isn't enough to make you see that spinach is a powerhouse, don't forget that this leafy green vegetable provides tons of fiber and antioxidants, too.
Spinach is also an accessible ingredient—it's available frozen, fresh, and canned—so you can always keep some on hand. And you can easily use it in one of our spinach pasta recipes for dinner tonight.
Prosciutto Carbonara with Spinach
As far as pasta dishes go, carbonara is undoubtedly on the richer side (and we love it for that very reason!). If you want to balance out that heaviness and add a little freshness to this classic dish, try adding in a few handfuls of spinach. Just a few minutes of stirring at the end of cooking is all it needs to wilt down and happily marry with the sauce and pasta.
Squash Lasagna with Spinach
Want to serve something nutrient dense but oh-so satisfying for dinner? This lasagna fits the bill. It pairs a hefty 10 ounces of spinach with hearty kabocha squash and a rich béchamel sauce, creating a decadent vegetarian dinner that's impossible to resist.
Spaghetti with Spinach, Peas, and Herbed Ricotta
No sauce is needed to liven up this meal, the spinach does that for you. Its slightly sweet taste amplifies the flavor of the peas and it gives spaghetti a double dose of silkiness when paired with creamy ricotta.
Sausage and Spinach Alfredo
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This recipe transforms our go-to macaroni and cheese recipe into the ultimate repurposed leftovers. Italian sausage sautéed with onions and red pepper flakes provide sweet, salty, and spicy elements that are all balanced by the addition of rich cream, cheesy macaroni, bright spinach, and nutty Parmesan.
Penne with Spinach Pesto and Turkey Sausage
Though pesto is usually made with just basil, it doesn't have to be. We upped the green factor here times three, introducing both spinach and peas into this version, to give this favorite sauce even more vibrancy and texture. After a super quick spin in the food processor, it's ready to be tossed with penne and sausage, coating the entire dish in fragrant, bright, and green goodness.
Ravioli with Roasted Eggplant, Tomatoes, and Capers
We love keeping store-bought ravioli on hand for fast weeknight meals: They cook quickly, are easy to dress up, and are impressively versatile. This recipe pairs spinach ravioli with silky eggplant, bursting cherry tomatoes, and caramelized shallot. The entire dish is then topped with Parmesan and basil. It's a surprisingly simple, elegant weeknight meal you'll keep coming back to.
Whole-Wheat Pasta with Lentils, Spinach, and Leeks
Pairing whole-wheat pasta with lentils and spinach is a no-brainer; the earthiness of the lentils and spinach combine beautifully with the heartiness of the pasta to create a healthful, wholesome dish. Sautéed garlic, leek, and thyme provide fragrance to this rustic meal and tie everything together.
Creamy Baked Tortellini with Spinach
This cheesy pasta bake comes together in just 35 minutes. Store bought tortellini makes quick work of prep—the cheese-filled pasta is flash boiled then tossed with fresh spinach and a fast turkey ragu. The mixture bakes under a crunchy panko topping.
Linguine with Shrimp and Spinach
Not only does a shorter ingredient list typically mean minimal prep work, it also means each individual ingredient has a chance to shine. This weeknight-friendly recipe keeps it super simple, tossing linguine and shrimp with a touch of fragrant extra-virgin olive oil, bright lemon zest and juice, and a few handfuls of fresh spinach.
One-Pot Penne with Spinach, Ricotta, and Pine Nuts
One-pot meals are the way to go; why spend extra time doing dishes when you don't need to? This recipe cleverly calls for cooking spinach directly with the pasta, and then topping the mixture with rich touches of salty Parmesan, creamy ricotta, and buttery toasted pine nuts to elevate the humble penne into something special.
Tangy Pasta Salad with Spinach
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Why weigh down a pasta salad with a heavy dressing when you can keep it light and refreshing with a shake-in-a-jar lemon-herb dressing? Choose your short pasta of choice (the more ridges to catch and cling to the dressing, the better!), toss it with crisp celery, fresh chopped spinach, and briny capers, and this super-green pasta salad becomes the perfect side dish.
Spinach Mac and Cheese
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Mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, and we think there's no need to reach for the boxed stuff when it's so simple to make from scratch. This grown-up, dressed-up version boasts a generous amount of gooey Gruyère and wilted spinach; it tastes so decadent that you won't even realize you're eating your vegetables.
Pasta with Snap Peas, Basil, and Spinach
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It doesn't get easier than this recipe! One boiling pot of water cooks the pasta, blanches the snap peas, and wilts the basil and spinach. Just a quick stir with Parmesan and cream brings everything together in this super quick, convenient, and vegetable-forward pasta dish.
Spinach Linguine with Walnut Sauce
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We love spinach stirred and wilted into any pasta dish, but why not take it a step further and find pasta that actually contains spinach? Spinach linguine is the perfect choice (and a fun way to switch up your pasta game if you're getting bored of the usual). Its muted green color is the perfect backdrop for this cream sauce that comes together in the food processor with rich toasted walnuts and aromatic garlic.
Spicy Chicken Pasta
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This one-pot wonder of a pasta dish has it all—starch, vegetable, protein—and comes together in just 20 minutes. The diced chicken cooks directly with the pasta to maximize efficiency, and the sauce simmers in the very same pot, adorning the pasta with pungent garlic, silky spinach, an acidic kick from tomato and lemon, and some heat thanks to red pepper flakes.
Spinach Linguine with Ham and Broccoli
We love the combination of spinach pasta and a creamy sauce, and this just might be the ultimate version. Small-but-mighty pieces of salty ham and aromatic garlic form the base of the rich cream sauce, which then coats the spinach linguine and broccoli (boiled together to simplify clean-up!). It's pasta perfection.
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